“High Peaks from the Loj Road” and is an oil painting. It will be on display through Nov. 3. (Sandra Hildreth)

SARANAC LAKE — “The mountains are calling and I must go” is a quote attributed to John Muir, one that Saranac Lake artist Sandra Hildreth fully understands the meaning of, as she too has felt that pull of the mountains.

Hildreth’s featured artist show, “M O U N T A I N S,” opens on Friday, Oct. 4 at the Adirondack Artists Guild Gallery, 52 Main St., Saranac Lake. The reception is from 5 – 7 and all are welcome. The exhibit continues through Nov 3.

Hildreth grew up in Wisconsin, where glacial moraines and eskers were about the only reasons the ground wasn’t flat, but she recalls she was always drawn to mountains.

“Maybe it was the western novels and movies I loved as a kid,” Hildreth said, “but mountains have always attracted me.”

She moved to Northern New York in the early ’70s, actually living in the St. Lawrence Valley, but within sight of the Adirondacks. Later, taking up hiking and plein air painting, she began to spend much more time in the mountains. In 2004, she moved to Saranac Lake.

Mountains are not her only subject matter, as she loves to paint all aspects of the wild environment: lakes, rivers, waterfalls, marshes, forests, bogs, rocks, wild flowers and wildlife; but mountains will be the main subject of all the new paintings in the October exhibit — not only the Adirondacks, but paintings done on trips to some of the “big” mountains: the Canadian Rockies, as well as mountains in Colorado, Montana and New Mexico. The New Mexico paintings may still be wet as Hildreth is heading there to paint during the week prior to her exhibit opening.

Fascinated with the effects of changing light and seasons, Hildreth focuses on the qualities that make each mountain view unique. All of the paintings will have been done outdoors, on location, “en plein air,” and not exhibited previously.